Wilbur

I look forward to picking up my CSA box at New Town Farms on Thursdays this year because I get to see Wilbur, the Koenigsberg's French Mastiff (Dogue de Bordeaux, Bordeaux Mastiff, or French Mastiff). He is such a sweetheart. He has jaws that could probably separate your foot from your calf, but is Mr. Laid Back. I woke him up from a sound sleep in the hot sun this afternoon:

He seemed underwhelmed with my efforts to be friends:

Another wonderful harvest in today's box: kale, BIG bag of spinach, BIG bag of salad greens, and BIG bag of braising greens, plus beets, turnips, and full size bok choi:

What Warren Buffet Did, and Didn't, Give His Children

An interesting interview on today's "Morning Edition" program on NPR with Peter Buffett, son of Warren Buffett, the world's third richest person (according to the March, 2010, Forbes ranking). Warren Buffett plans to leave his children with a good bit of training, but very few dollars. Peter Buffett, a musician, inherited $90,000 from his grandfather when he was 19. It would have grown to $73 million if he'd invested it in his father's holding company, but instead he bought music equipment to begin his successful career in music, and happily so. The money that the elder Buffett will leave his three children is $1 billion each with which to do charitable work, but none for themselves personally. An interesting perspective on how one of the world's richest people taught his children about money. (Like not being willing to give Peter a small loan when he was in his twenties. It made the younger Buffett angry then, but now he is glad for his father's decision.)

You can read or listen to the interview on the NPR web site here.

Rheumatoid Arthritis

If you, or anyone you know, suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, please read the testimony of a 40-year-old (female) competitive marathon runner who was struck with R.A. and cured of it (and other illnesses) within a few weeks after switching to a vegan diet under the care of Dr. John McDougall. This is a powerful testimony to the healing power of foods (and the elimination of animal products, which this person ate heavily prior to switching to a vegan diet). Read it here.

One wonders how much evidence it takes to convince people who live with sickness to adjust their diets. I have a post coming about a recent conference where TONS of information was presented about diet and health. Stay tuned.

This Can't Be Good, But It's Funny

Lance Armstrong is expecting his second child with gal-pal Anna Hansen, his second with her and fifth overall (the first three with his ex-wife).

The four-month-old, in-utero Armstrong already has a Twitter account ("cincoarmstrong") with 2,433 followers. This can't be good, but it is funny.

Creativity

Two illustrations of pure creativity:

First, a palindrome (read the same way in either direction, in this case with opposite meanings) written by a 20-year-old. You have to watch it all the way through to see how it works:

Next, for the younger generation who have never seen it, the most famous commercial in history: Apple's famous "1984" ad introducing the Macintosh computer. It ran only once, during the 1984 Super Bowl. It was produced by Ridley Scott and was based on George Orwell's 1984 with IBM pictured in the role of "Big Brother." This video is of Steve Jobs presenting the "1984" commercial at an Apple conference in the fall of 1983. Nobody can accuse Jobs of a lack of creativity and charisma, even 27 years ago. (Ironically, some wonder if Jobs has become "Big Brother," with Apple now being the third largest company in America [market cap] behind Exxon and Microsoft.) The commercial itself is powerful, but to see it in the context of Jobs' remarks is a part of cultural history (let it play past the opening sound track):

The Three Sisters

Southwestern Mexican/Indian populations historically grew a combination of vegetables known as "the Three Sisters": corn (maize), squash, and beans. The corn stalks grew tall, the squash grew low and provided shade and cooling for the soil while blocking weed growth, and the beans trailed up the corn stalks using them as a natural trellis as well as fixing nitrogen in the soil to feed the corn, a heavy nitrogen user. The U.S. Mint even produced a $1 gold coin commemorating the Three Sisters" on the reverse side:

Joel Gruver, professor of agriculture at Western Illinois University, uses backyard wading pools to create raised garden beds. I noticed in a series of pictures he posted on his beds project (here and here) that he is growing the Three Sisters in one: beans in the outermost circle, corn in the middle circle, and squash growing in the middle. Very creative! Something anyone could do to create a YardFarm in their own urban or suburban setting:

(Thanks to Joel Gruver for the use of the pic of his growing pool.)

Update: I heard from Joel -- his variation on the "Three Sisters" was that the beans were bush beans instead of climbing (pole) beans, and the center planting is cukes instead of squash (the starter leaves on both plants are similar, so I had assumed squash). He said the corn was a tropical variety that got over 12 feet tall (!) planted in the pool. The cukes didn't fare as well because of the shallow soil and need for continual watering. But, as the pics I linked to above testify, the pools are perfect for growing mesclun mix and other salad greens that require less depth.)

Imitating Intergenerational, Indigenous Eaters

Another fine passage from The Jungle Effect by Daphne Miller, M.D., this time on how our modern culture has disrupted the age-old, powerful process of youngsters learning how to eat by imitating their elders:

At the same time that the mass media are pushing us to imitate celebrities, we have lost our opportunity to imitate our elders. It is now customary for people to leave home oat a young age and live apart from their parents or grandparents, often being separated from one another by hundreds of miles. With this distance, we have lost our opportunity to learn how to grow, collect, and prepare our indigenous foods. In addition, the family meal during which a group sits down together on a daily basis is slowly becoming extinct. Most of us find ourselves eating alone and often in front of the television. [WK—Guilty as charged.) This is a practice that invariably leads to overeating, since television prevents us from noticing our body's natural cues that tell us we are full. In addition, eating in isolation offers people little chance to learn table manners, share food lore, or appreciate the recipes of the previous generation. For many, celebrations involving feasting of fasting have also lost their importance. As a result, modest everyday meals punctuated by monthly or bimonthly feasts have given way to daily feasts where every meal becomes an overindulgence in calorie rich foods. (P. 42)

Yet another reason to preserve and protect the near-extinct practice of intergenerational living arrangements.

YardFarm

Taken this morning in my tiny front yard garden spaces.

A beautiful, HUGE (8-9" across) zucchini female flower:

The backside of the same flower with the new zucchini at the base:

Russian kale coming up:

Yellow squash:

Several varieties of tomato:

Peppers in a pot:

America and Bordeaux spinach in a planter:

Basil coming up:

Intensive gardening:

Mint, flowering dill, and oregano (growing in kitty litter buckets):

Aloe in a row (begging to be separated and re-potted). When cooking pasta recently, pouring off the boiling water, I managed to pour a stream of near boiling water over my index finger while holding the pot. It turned red, and within a couple minutes I could see a large blister forming. I immediately cut a large stem of aloe, split it open lengthwise, and taped it around my finger and kept it there the rest of the day until bedtime. I then removed it and coated the finger with wheatgrass cream and bandaged it, then another piece of aloe the next morning. After 24 hours, my finger was fine. No pain, no redness, no blister—from what I'm guessing amounted to a second-degree burn. Everybody should keep aloe handy:

Why I Rarely Eat Out

From the book I'm reading, The Jungle Effect by Daphne Miller, M.D.:

Recently, as I was waiting to use the restroom in my favorite Thai restaurant in San Francisco, I was reminded of [how restaurants can turn healthy food unhealthy]. Tucked back in the kitchen, I spied a huge case of Skippy crunchy peanut butter. So this was the secret ingredient in all those peanut dishes! Thai recipes that were originally meant to include whole peanuts, rich in monounsaturated fats and protein, now contained Skippy, a nut butter mixed with other manipulated fats, that happens to have sugar as its second ingredient. This illustrates how important it is to cook your own foods and do most of your [healthy] eating at home. (p. 20)

Somehow, I began developing a sense a few years ago that, when I sit down in a restaurant, I am at the mercy of the people in the kitchen. Literally, I place my health in their hands. And given what I know (and the Bible says) about human nature, that's not a transaction I'm willing to make easily. To get Skippy peanut butter (sugar, hydrogenated oils) instead of pure nut-based peanut sauce in a Thai restaurant is the refined version of stories that came out a few years ago about teenage cooks spitting in the food (for fun or spite) and picking hamburgers up off the dirty floor and putting them back on the grill at fast food joints.

One assumes that this kind of thing doesn't happen at Chez Panisse or Millennium in San Francisco, or the Candle Cafe or Candle 79 in New York City. But how would one know for sure? This isn't paranoia, it's realism. In all of life, there's a time and place for faith (trust), but not blind faith.

The guiding principle about wealth is that nobody cares as much about your money as you do, especially when "caring" has a profit motive. And the same can be said about health and food: nobody cares as much about your health as you do—especially when there is money to be made at your expense.

So, get to know your food. Get to know the people who cook your food. And take nothing for granted in an age when the heart of man is demonstrably "deceitful above all things and beyond cure" (Jeremiah 17:9).

Doctors Don't Know Beans

The title of this post is an overstatement, of course. Doctors know a lot, and we have all benefited, at least once, from their skills—especially in emergency situations. America's trauma/emergency care continues to get the world's highest rankings among developed nations.

Sadly, America's doctors know little of curative medicine, depending on their allopathic training to change presenting symptoms rather than identify root causes. Especially is that true when it comes to nutritional approaches to the healing arts—letting "food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food" (Hippocrates). The average doctor "doesn't know beans" about the healing power of food unless they gained such knowledge after completing medical school.

The following quote is from a book I'm reading, The Jungle Effect: A Doctor Discovers the Healthiest Diets from Around the World—Why They Work and How to Bring Them Home by Daphne Miller, M.D. (Collins, 2008). This is a book about the foods eaten in traditional cultures around the world, cultures that manifest few of the chronic disease associated with those who eat an American diet. The quote is the author's own confession of her lack of training in nutrition while being trained at some of the best medical schools in America. I find it refreshing when a doctor 'fesses up about what he or she doesn't know, and how s/he set about to fill in the gaps in his or her knowledge base and practice.

Like Angela, most of the patients that I see daily in my medical practice are trying to prevent or treat a chronic health problem, lose weight, and preserve vitality. For many years, I felt ill equipped to help them achieve their goals. After four years of medical school [at Harvard], three years of residency training [at UCLA], and two in a postgraduate fellowship, this is a hard confession to make.

Of course, I was well versed in using medications. Initially I found it satisfying to watch how rapidly many of these drugs took effect—sometimes lowering blood pressure, blood sugar, or cholesterol levels in a matter of days. However, after several months of practicing medicine out in the real world, it became obvious to me (and certainly obvious to my patients) that there were many unintended side effects from the treatments that I was dispensing daily with my prescription pad. Furthermore, it seemed that my standard approach was not getting at the root of so many of these health problems: the foods my patients ate on a daily basis.

These days, the majority of serious health problems can be traced back to a poor diet. (p. 9)

Who wouldn't feel confident being treated by a doctor who trained at Harvard and UCLA? Yet how many of us have ever sat in a doctor's office and been asked about "the foods we eat on a daily basis"? Good for Dr. Miller for taking a different approach.